Cuckoo Teapot, Essex Chronicle

Eastern Angles is a regional theatrical miracle and for the Arts Council to have threatened them with cutting their grant by half was sheer lunacy.

If ACE wanted artistic excellence, this company has been providing it at the same high level for many years at mainstream theatres and out of the way locations. Among their alumni is Alistair McGowan who appeared in Goodbye America.Their latest production now touring is an account of the tangled lives of Norkies (Norfolk labourers) who spent winters in Burton in the Potteries working in the malting industry. The young men would then bring home a teapot for their womenfolk.

Writer Kate Griffin has homed in on a quadratic equation of generations of north and eastern families. Two matriarchs are determined to protect family secrets but prove unable to when fate steps in to set things on a very different course. I can't reveal the ending except to say that it is a cliff hanger right to the last words.

Angles' founder, Ivan Cutting, directs this simply staged, imaginative and powerfully acted story with music by Pat Whymark. Designer Charlie Cridlan's simple green wooden set with doors set into it is versatile enough to be a sitting room, boat, riverbank and more.

The five-strong cast are all strong actors with Tim Bell and Bryony Harding as the younger generation, and Jacqueline Redgewell and Helen Grady as the matriarchs - one a temperance follower, the other an outspoken critic. Graham Howes doubles as the dubious hypocrite Mr Spencer and genial Charlie.

It's well worth seeing. 

And finally, the good news is that ACE has granted Eastern Angles a reprieve, but you still need to support them as they go from village and school halls to barns and other remote venues.

Mary Redman